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Assessing the significance of wet-canopy evaporation from forests during extreme rainfall events for flood mitigation in mountainous regions of the UK
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  • Trevor Page,
  • Keith Beven,
  • Nick Chappell,
  • Ann kretzschmar,
  • Barry Hankin
Trevor Page
Lancaster University

Corresponding Author:t.page@lancaster.ac.uk

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Keith Beven
Lancaster University
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Nick Chappell
Lancaster University
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Ann kretzschmar
Lancaster University
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Barry Hankin
JBA Consulting
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Abstract

There is increased interest in the potential of tree planting to help mitigate flooding using nature-based solutions or natural flood management. However, many publications based upon catchment studies conclude that, as flood magnitude increases, benefit from forest cover declines and is insignificant for extreme flood events. These conclusions conflict with estimates of evaporation loss from forest plot observations of gross rainfall, throughfall and stem flow. This study explores data from existing studies to assess the magnitudes of evaporation and attempts to identify the meteorological conditions under which they would be supported. This is achieved using rainfall event data collated from publications and data archives from studies undertaken in temperate environments around the world. The meteorological conditions required to drive the observed evaporation losses are explored theoretically using the Penman-Monteith equation. The results of this theoretical analysis are compared with the prevailing meteorological conditions during large and extreme rainfall events in mountainous regions of the UK to assess the likely significance of wet canopy evaporation loss. The collated dataset showed that Ewc losses between approximately 2 and 38% of gross rainfall (1.5 to 39.4 mm d-1) have been observed during large rainfall events (up to 118 mm d-1) and limited data for extreme events (> 150 mm d-1). Event data greater than 150 mm, where duration was not reported, showed similarly high percentage evaporation losses. Theoretical estimates of wet-canopy evaporation indicated that, to reproduce these high losses, relative humidity and the aerodynamic resistance for vapour transport needed to be within an envelope of approximately 90 to 97.5% and 0.5 to 2 s m-1 respectively. Surface meteorological data during large and extreme rainfall events in the UK suggest that conditions favourable for high wet-canopy evaporation are not uncommon and indicate that significant evaporation losses during large and extreme events are possible but not for all events and not at all locations. Thus the disparity with the results from catchment studies remains.
12 May 2020Submitted to Hydrological Processes
15 May 2020Submission Checks Completed
15 May 2020Assigned to Editor
15 May 2020Reviewer(s) Assigned
07 Jul 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
16 Jul 2020Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
23 Jul 20201st Revision Received
23 Jul 2020Submission Checks Completed
23 Jul 2020Assigned to Editor
23 Jul 2020Reviewer(s) Assigned
19 Aug 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
19 Aug 2020Editorial Decision: Accept
27 Aug 2020Published in Hydrological Processes. 10.1002/hyp.13895